


Cascade

by evadne



Series: Portions of Happiness [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Femslash February, Love Confessions, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2013-02-13
Packaged: 2017-11-29 04:43:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evadne/pseuds/evadne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things are worth waiting for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cascade

**Author's Note:**

> The last in the series.

Sally remembers when they were still just friends how she’d sometimes half-wish that she and Molly were alphas. In a friendship between two alphas open displays of affection would be carefully controlled, limited at best to the occasional drunk _I love you alph_ , with an arm slung round the shoulders. Sally wouldn’t be able to say _you’re marvellous, you should take better care of yourself, you’re my best friend and I completely adore you_ the way she did say to Molly all the time. She’d have had to lie, instead of which she told the truth constantly, over and over again, without it ever getting heard, and it felt somehow more dishonest than lying.

 

After she and Molly first slept together, Sally found herself at first almost even more dishonest than before, and hated every second of it. Then – and this was new, not something Sally had encountered in past relationships, but maybe that was part of growing up – they’d actually _talked_ about it. Admittedly they’d talked in an oblique kind of way, edging around the issues rather than dealing with them head on, but still, they’d had the conversation. And Molly had been sweet and sympathetic, which Sally would have expected to be unbearable, but in fact was – fine.

 

Sally likes to think she can feel the shift in the way Molly looks at her sometimes, in the quiet between them late at night when they’re lying side by side, legs twined together and fingers just touching. But she tries not to think about it too much. Things have to happen at their own pace, and, much to her surprise, she finds it’s not so hard to wait like this for a while.

 

*

 

_Any discourse that establishes the boundaries of the body serves the purpose of instating and naturalizing certain taboos regarding the appropriate limits, postures and modes of exchange that define what it is that constitutes bodies._

_Homosexual and crossexual practices open surfaces and orifices to erotic signification along new cultural lines. The naturalized notion of a single coherent body is itself a consequence of taboos that render the body discrete by virtue of its stable boundaries. Omega-omega and alpha-alpha relationships are categorised as ‘homosexual’ and are seen to create new boundaries which are both unnatural and uncivilised. Beta-beta relationships are not categorised in the same way and exist between boundaries in a way which is simultaneously consistent with social expectation and a challenge to it. Crossexual relationships – whether beta-omega or beta-alpha – deregulate the boundaries entirely. The presumption of heterosexual construction in the rites of passage that govern various bodily orifices is threatened by sexual acts which reconfigure the rites in both action and language..._

-          from Judith Butler, ‘Gender Trouble: Omegism and the Subversion of Identity’, 1990

 

*

 

Molly pushes Sally against the wall, kisses her fiercely, giving her lips the slightest press of teeth.

 

‘I can’t believe you actually brought me along to a crime scene, ‘ she breathes.

 

‘Lestrade lets Sherlock bring John all the time,’ Sally says, smirking. ‘Hoe couldn’t very well say I couldn’t bring someone. Especially someone who’s been dragged along by Sherlock to a crime scene herself before.’

 

‘It was amazing,’ Molly says. ‘I mean – I shouldn’t say that, should I? Because it was awful, of course it was awful, god, that poor alpha, hais _family_ , God – but – _you_ were amazing.’

 

Sally beams. ‘You think?’

 

Molly pushes her fingers into Sally’s hair, presses her cheek to Sally’s. ‘Of course you were,’ she murmurs. ‘You were – so patient, you were methodical, you didn’t leave anything unchecked. It must get so dull sometimes, but you – you ran through everything with all the witnesses, you knew exactly what you were looking for, and you _found_ it. You were right.’

 

‘I was _so_ right,’ Sally says, letting herself feel the elation. She often resists it, because it feels wrong to be celebrating a job well done when someone’s _dead_ , but – she’s good at her job, and maybe she can be a bit proud of that.

 

‘I want you so much right now,’ Molly says. Sally looks at her, sees her eyes wide and fierce, and knows that Molly means every word.

 

‘That can be arranged,’ Sally says, and her heart flutters wildly, swept along in all this feeling.

 

*

_I don’t hate anyone, or anything like that, I love everyone as God’s children, but alphas are meant to be with omegas, okay, it’s a fact, it’s how people were made. It’s in the Bible. God made omegas to be companionship for alphas and betas to be assists and companions for them both, helping them build humanity in God’s image. Homosexuals are unnatural and ungodly. And crossexuality doesn’t even make sense! That’s a crossing of the boundaries God made in a way that’s – I think I would even say demonic._

-          from a blog post at www.christianomegamusings.wordpress.com

 

*

 

‘Irene’s texting me,’ Sally says.

 

They’re curled up together by Molly’s fake fireplace, lit up and glowing in an almost-convincing manner. Sally’s just got in and her feet are like blocks of ice, but Molly let them rest on her lap with a minimum of complaint, and is now rubbing them absently.

 

‘Oh God,’ Molly says. ‘Since when?’

 

‘Yesterday,’ Sally says. ‘Three texts so far. _You’re an interesting woman_ , then _Molly has excellent taste, doesn’t she?,_ and just on my way here _You and Molly and I should all have dinner.’_

‘Dinner doesn’t mean dinner,’ Molly says.

 

‘I’d got that far on my own, thanks. I _am_ a police officer, you know.’

 

Molly giggles. ‘Just ignore her,’ she says. ‘You don’t have to reply.’ Then she pauses. ‘Unless, of course, you want to.’

 

*

 

 _The gender tertiary is, frankly, not that well thought-through. People will tell me in a heartbeat that of_ course _I must be one thing or another, that I’m an omega because I look like one, that ‘genderqueer’ is a made up word that doesn’t mean anything – but what they won’t tell me is what gender actually is, what sex actually is, what the hell the real differences are between these invented categories. They won’t tell me because they can’t. They don’t know. And yet even though they don’t understand they’re happy to tell me I’m overcomplicating things. Even though they don’t know what_ hoem _or_ her _or_ haim _really signify, they’re somehow able to assert with confidence that zie_ and _zir_ and haeor _and_ haeom _signify nothing._

-          from a blog post at transissues.com

 

*

 

Sally is sitting opposite Molly on the tube. It’s two in the morning – they’ve been out clubbing, ridiculously, a whim of Sally’s that Molly probably shouldn’t have gratified.  The fact that she did, and did with enthusiasm, makes Sally smile, even though she’s half asleep, her eyes mostly shut, just vaguely aware of the darkness flickering past outside.

 

Molly is drunk, hilariously so, and Sally realises she’s now mumbling something. Sally opens her eyes.

 

‘It’s ridic – ridulus – just stupid how much I like spending time with you,’ Molly says. ‘Like – no one else is like this, you know. No one.’

 

Sally reaches over and squeezes her hand. The tube rushes on, and they’re rushed along with it, shooting rapidly towards home.

 

*

 

_I understand the arguments against having betas in the army – they just don’t have the upper body strength of alphas – but I supported them nevertheless in the ‘70s and I don’t regret that decision. Just because some of them aren’t as strong the ones who are shouldn’t be kept out when they could help us._

_Omegas, though – that idea’s just insane, I’m sorry, and only proves omegists’ fixation on equality above common sense. Omegas are not only weaker, but they’ll distract the alphas in the line of duty. I’m ashamed to be living in this time._

-          comment on a ‘Guardian’ article entitled ‘How many sexes in the front lines?’, 2012

 

*

 

Irene’s teeth graze Sally’s ear. Haer hand is on Molly’s back, and now shae says, ‘I want you to finger her, Molly.’

 

Sally’s eyes meet Molly’s, and Molly’s eyes are thrilled, and engaged, and almost a little bit adoring.

 

‘God yes,’ Sally says. Molly’s hands slip down her body, cradling at her as they go, as if reluctant to let  any part of her out of their reach.

 

‘Oh, you two,’ Irene says indulgently, and Sally laughs.

 

*

_Well, forgive me if I don’t call myself an omegist, or even an ‘anti-sexist’. Omegism has_ never _had the concerns of betas front and centre; mostly it’s ignored them altogether or acted against them. And as far as I can tell the whole idea of ‘anti-sexism’ is to bring betas and omegas back into a coherent movement without changing_ anything _about the legitimate concerns betas had in the first place._

_I am a betaist, and if that makes me ‘fragmenting the movement’ or ‘letting the patriarchy succeed in divide and rule’ then fine. I personally am not prepared to sit around waiting for omegas to generously grant us a place in their movement which I’m not convinced they’re ever going to give us. I don’t see why we should wait for them to start acting like we matter._

-          from a blog post at betterforbetas.tumblr.com

 

*

 

It takes months. But one day, Molly looks at Sally in a way that’s achingly familiar to Sally because she’s looked the same way at Molly so many times, and opens her mouth.

 

Sally puts a finger on her lips. ‘You don’t need to say it,’ she says. ‘I got there on my own. I _am_ a police officer, you know.’

 

‘I want to say it,’ Molly says, gripping Sally’s finger hard and pulling it back. ‘I want to say it all the time, and I want to keep saying it over and over into the foreseeable future, or  – well – as long as you like.’

 

‘Then who am I to stop you?’ Sally says, and kisses her in sheer joy. The room’s still full of pale shadows, but morning light is beginning to creep over the roses in their vase on the windowsill. Molly says it, and the world trembles a little bit, or perhaps that’s just Sally. But either way it’s fine, because there’s a scent in the air that might be the roses or Molly’s perfume, and Molly’s hands are catching at Sally’s, and their lips keep colliding, somehow frantic and serene at the same time.

 

Sally says the words back to Molly, a formality though they may be at this point. They kiss. They eat ice cream. They imagine the future stretching out before them, bright and alive and in bloom.

**Author's Note:**

> ROSES  
>  _for M D_
> 
> This is the moment the roses  
>  cascade over backstreet walls,  
>  throng the public parks -  
>  their cream or scrunched pinks
> 
> unfolding now to demonstrate  
>  unacknowledged thought.  
>  _The world is ours too!_ they brave,  
>  careless of tomorrow
> 
> and wholly without leadership  
>  for who'd mount a soap-box  
>  on the rose-behalf?
> 
> _'I haggle for my little  
>  portion of happiness,' _  
>  says each flower, equal, in the scented mass.
> 
> \- Kathleen Jamie


End file.
